(Diocles: To ensure accuracy, my Master has instructed me to use Caesar’s account of the campaigns against the Gauls to provide the relevant facts and dates that are crucial to his account of his experiences with Caesar.)
The whole problem with the Helvetii started because they had decided to move from their homes to find new places to live. One difficulty posed by this idea was that the place they were interested in moving to already had people in it, and they were people that we were told had asked for Roman protection. The Helvetii had already begun the process of migrating, burning their own towns, farms and fields in order to ensure that they would not lose heart and turn back. The other consequence of this decision was that they were not liable to be persuaded, either by reason or force, a fact that we would soon discover when we faced them. First, however, we had some distance to cover to face them; being honest, the first three or four days marching at the pace Caesar had ordered was almost enough to do almost all of us in, and I was just as exhausted at the end of the day as the rest of my comrades, barely having the energy to speculate about what we were marching into as we listlessly chewed our evening meal. One of the more valuable lessons I took from this experience was that, no matter how hard you may train in garrison, there is still a large gap between the type of fitness and endurance that the army tries to maintain in peacetime, and what is needed to survive and thrive during a campaign season. Some of the hardest hit were the immunes who were excused from normal training duties, the result being that they were in even poorer condition than the rest of us. Poor Vibius looked more dead than alive at the end of the first day’s march, as I literally had to force him to eat his meal, shoving his bread down his throat and commanding him to chew. I am convinced that even as he complied, he was asleep while doing so, and was only marginally improved the next day. Regardless, he did not fall out as a straggler, ending every day’s march with the rest of us, for which I was very proud of him.
The country we were introduced to was different than anything I had ever seen in my life. Even in the far north of Hispania, the land is not nearly as lush and green as what we passed through. These provinces were prosperous and peaceful, with everyone giving us a cheerful greeting and a wave as we passed by, the only exception to this being men with daughters, who despite their best efforts would lose some of them to the allure of the Legion tramping by. It never failed that people, not just girls but young boys and some men as well, would attach themselves to our column as we moved, using the Legion in the same manner one would hitch a ride on a bypassing cart to take them somewhere else. For our part, this would engender endless speculation on the motives of these people. Not so much with the boys, it being a foregone conclusion to us that they were lured by the romance of life as a Legionary, a fact at which we all heartily laughed, conveniently ignoring the fact that for many of us, it was the same siren call we had heard. Such is the easy disdain those on the inside show for those on the outside of something like the army. However, for the girls and women who joined the camp followers it was harder to understand, but their actions helped pass many watches spent on the road as we discussed the topic. Not that we were complaining, since almost all of these women either became the women of formerly unattached Legionaries at best, or whores servicing the rest of us at worst.
Fortunately, much of the march was on good Roman roads, so our progress was rapid, although to hear the cursing it was hard to tell. As we had experienced and would learn until it was ingrained as an expectation that we had for ourselves, nothing was fast enough for Caesar. If we marched 28 miles in a day, it should have been 30; if 30 then it should have been 35 miles. Despite learning this was his nature, some of us never grew accustomed to it, and one of them was Vibius.
“There’s no pleasing that man,” he muttered one day.
The 10th was now a week into our march, and were within two or three day’s march of the latest place we had been told to be by Caesar. We were barely into the first watch of the march when Vibius made his comment, but I knew the reaming we had taken from the Primus Pilus that morning was still fresh on his mind, as it was with everyone. Seemingly out of nowhere, with our Cohort waiting our turn to start the march, the Primus Pilus spent that time telling us how disgraced he was at our “sightseeing” pace and how we were letting Caesar down. This was not only shocking to us, it was bewildering, and our confused glances at each other confirmed I was not the only one who felt this way. We could only go as fast as the pace set for us and since our Cohort was not in the lead the day before, we were not sure where this was coming from. As we learned later, the same tongue-lashing was given by the Primus Pilus to every Cohort, along with the cavalry and the men who ran the baggage train. It made us feel somewhat better, at least as far as our feelings, yet the pace set that day was cracking and we instantly knew it was going to be a hard one. Glancing over at Vibius when he made his comment, I could see that even so early he was struggling more than he should have been, and I could only hope that the gains he had made in his fitness over the last few days did not dig so deeply into his reserves that he would have to drop from the march. His face was already red, and the sweat dripped from his nose in a steady stream, despite the coolness of the day. I replied, but even as I did so it was with some surprise, being sure I knew who “he” was referring to, and it was not the Primus Pilus.
“He’s just trying to get us there as fast as he can because he wants his best to send into battle”, I reasoned.
“Fat lot of good it'll do if when we get there, we’re too exhausted to pick up a javelin, let alone throw one,” he snapped, impatiently swiping at the sweat rolling into his eyes.
For my part, after the first few days of struggle, I adjusted fairly easily back into the campaigning rhythm, which I suspected was another reason for Vibius’ irritation. I shrugged, knowing by this time that there were times to argue with Vibius and times not to, and this was the latter. He had made up his mind that Caesar was the cause of his misery, and nothing I could say would change that. It was in this frame of mind that we kept moving, the only sound for many miles the thud of our boots and the jingling of our gear bouncing around. One thankful aspect of this country, I mused, was that it did not kick up as much dust as Hispania, something a Legionary learns to appreciate. Also, the nights were much colder than even in Narbo, so we woke up every morning shivering, and it was not unusual that there was a thin skin of ice on the water buckets that were used to water the livestock. Marching up the valley of the Rhodanus (Rhone), we passed through a number of towns and bypassed the larger ones if possible. Despite the fact the folks in the town, at least in a Roman province, might like the spectacle of an army marching by, towns and cities provided a wealth of temptation for a lot of us. In turn, this inevitably brought trouble in one form or another, so invariably whenever possible we passed them by on an outer road. After a few days, despite the area immediately along the river staying relatively flat, it was still taking a noticeably upward tilt, and the river valley soon was surrounded by hills that grew in height as we moved. The timing of the Primus Pilus’ chastisement was unfortunate in that sense; the main reason for our tardiness, if it was indeed real, was more a result of the land over which we marched than any lack of fitness on our part, at least by this point. None of this made an obol’s worth of difference to us, of course, and while I was not willing to condemn Caesar to the degree that Vibius had, I will say that even his most ardent supporters were somewhat muted when they discussed him with their comrades. At the end of the day that we received the warning from the Primus Pilus, it was like being on the first day of the march again, at least if one were to judge simply by the obvious level of fatigue. Little did we know, we were relatively as refreshed as it was possible to be, given the circumstances and what Caesar planned for us.